Trying to pray gay rights away

Homophobes of the cloth, praying for bigotry to rule: Pastor Terry Webster (left), New Corinthian Church, joined other ministers in prayer Wednesday at the City-County Building. Nearly 30 clergy members from black churches throughout the city gathered in opposition to a gay rights proposal. - ROB GOEBEL / The Indy Star

"It is an offense to black people to be used – that the blood of our fathers and our own blood that was spilled on the pathways to civil rights should be used - as a lever to get legal license to make their own choices law."
-- Rev. Melvin Jackson of the Christian Love Missionary Baptist Church

Was Willie Wilson invited? More homo-bigots in the pulpit rail on, as black pastors in Indiana are praying for the defeat of a gay rights ordinance.

Huddled in prayer on the first floor of the City-County Building, leaders of more than a dozen black churches expressed opposition Wednesday to legislation designed to protect gays from housing and job discrimination.

...In petitioning God to guide the council members who will decide the issue, the ministers uniformly expressed bitter opposition to the idea that the gay rights movement is the modern equivalent of the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and '60s.

...Such sentiments are not uncommon around the country. Few black church leaders, the bedrock of the civil rights movement, have been willing to campaign for gay rights.
Likewise, predominantly black churches have seen little of the open warfare over homosexuality that is common in largely white denominations, such as the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians and United Methodists.

Robert Ferguson, president of Indiana Black Pride, a local grassroots organization that supports gay causes, said he can't think of a single leader from a black church who supports his group's work. "We are desperately searching for one," he said.

Mostly, he said, he finds black church leaders who say gays are bound for hell.

"It would seem as black people, we would recognize discrimination and hate rhetoric. But we have somehow taken on some of the characteristics of our oppressor and started to oppress others," he said.

Thanks to Holly for the pointer.

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And back by popular demand:



Yo Butt Ain't Made For That!" -- Willie Wilson unhinged. Go to SomethingAwful.com... or click the image.